Sir Stone

Living the American Dream of just getting by! God Bless America : - )

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@doctorbaytas Stand ?

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@DakotaStandard Holy shit. That’s full time, $9.62.

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@moosechildd 🫡🙏🤯👍

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@milesabovetech Bit rate?

[Andrew Gallimore @alieninsect]

Excellent conversation with @TheProjectUnity on DMT, alien intelligence, the future of humanity, and all that good stuff…👽🍄🪴

https://t.co/NsBAsybgzl

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@alieninsect Excellent score

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@RCarhartHarris Shameless plug. https://t.co/WOo8P6muz7 @Alldrugsequal

[Tony Shields @TonyShields_]

Mushrooms create crazy chemicals all the time.

But WHY does Psilocybin exist?

How is it that this “random” molecule from a little brown mushroom can have such profound impacts on our consciousness?

Is it just a fluke of nature, or something more?

The answer isn't obvious, but here are some of my favorite theories:

1. Psilocybin Is A Mushroom<>Human Communication Mechanism

Probably my favorite idea is that psilocybin is produced as a way for mushrooms to communicate with humans.

Obviously, it’s a little “out there” but many who have experienced a good dose of this compound would agree that there is a distinct “character” of the mushrooms, sometimes being described as a presence or entity.

The idea is that mushrooms themselves have a consciousness- and psilocybin is a unique kind of alien technology that allows them to communicate with us.

This is further propagated by the idea that mushrooms literally could be from another planet.

Their spores can survive in space and could theoretically travel through space.

If you really wanted to have fun thinking about it, you can imagine that spores are some ancient technology created by aliens spread through space as a desperate attempt to communicate with other beings.

Fun!

2. It’s A Defense Mechanism (Or Attractant)

What if mushrooms just produce this “poison” to fend off humans?

This seems reasonable at first glance because mushrooms probably don't want to be eaten.

If they have this "poison", that could prevent humans (or our ancestral version, monkeys), from eating them, therefore allowing them to propagate without disruption.

The problem with this theory however is that psilocybin is not poisonous.

So if that's what mushrooms were trying to do, they failed horribly-

We seek them out all over the world, and now cultivate them on a mass scale.

You could also say the opposite...

Mushrooms somehow think that this trait would be so desirable that we would purposefully want to help propagate the species.

But this doesn't make sense either because psilocybin containing mushrooms likely evolved before humans, not alongside humans.

So "humans finding it either desirable or undesirable theory" is probably NOT the reason why mushrooms produce psilocybin.

3. Defense Against Bugs

It's not just humans that want to eat these mushrooms...

Mushrooms also have to protect themselves from bugs!

The fact that psilocybin mushrooms grow on literal cow poop means there are probably also a lot of flies and other insects that might want to eat the mushrooms before they get a chance to release spores.

This is the central thesis of a 2018 research paper, and what I think to be the most likely reason why mushrooms evolved to produce psilocybin.

You see, psilocybin has a curious effect on human minds, but it has a slightly different effect on the minds of bugs...

It suppresses their appetite.

And suppressing somethings appetite is a perfectly sensible thing to do if you want that something to stop eating your species.

The paper is titled "Horizontal gene cluster transfer increased hallucinogenic mushroom diversity" published in the journal Evolution letters.

In the study, researchers found that the gene cluster responsible for producing psilocybin was present in various distantly related psilocybin mushroom species, but not in their closely related non-psychoactive counterparts.

They also discovered that this gene cluster had likely been transferred between different species of fungi through a process called horizontal gene transfer.

This allowed these fungi to rapidly gain the ability to produce psilocybin, which they speculate served as a defense mechanism against insects.

Again, the fact that psilocybin-producing mushrooms are often found in poop and wood-decay, (which are rich in bugs that eat or compete with fungi), supports the idea that this psilocybin production is an adaptive strategy to deter these insects from consuming the mushrooms.

And it's not just psilocybin- this same thing happens with spicy foods, for example the ghost pepper that deters elephants but doesn't seem to affect birds.

You may have also heard Amanita muscaria, another name for it being the "Fly Agaric" which has been used historically to kill flies with ibotenic acid.

So there it is- not the most exciting, but the most likely:

Mushrooms probably developed the ability to create psilocybin simply as a way to fend off all the flies that were flying around the poop that they were growing in…

It just so happens that this compound can also have profound effects on the human mind.

[Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson]

Ep. 4 Wannabe Dictator

[Andrew Gallimore @alieninsect]

"It is a nearby dimension—frightening, transformative, and beyond our powers to imagine, and yet to be explored in the usual way. We must send fearless experts, whatever that may come to mean, to explore and to report on what they find."

-- Terence McKenna

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@Acmebike I like the mural and artist The cheeky blue check mark for
Profile is just classy though.

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@jack Problems ***

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@JesusTrejo Clever

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@MAstronomers Now this is just fun

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@mykebogan Promise?

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@hstobesoIoneIy @mykebogan has many solid albums

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@Surly_Bikes

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@Surly_Bikes Cross Check Gravy Brown agrees

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@xanaxmoustache @mykebogan is on many platforms Great music 😎

[Sir Stone @rorystone]

@adamcurry Been long time.... annoying but kinda funny at this point